More Time and Another Sign

God did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly (2 Peter 2:5).

The Apostle Peter described Noah as a preacher ofrighteousness. While Noah and his sons worked tirelessly to build the ark, Noah took every opportunity to preach to the crowds that must have gathered to view “Noah’s Folly.” Yet when all was said and done, only 8 souls were saved. Imagine: Eight converts after 120 years of preaching. [By today’s number-driven churches, Noah was an utter failure!]

Today we think: If God just gave my son a little more time he’d believe. Or … If He sent my wife a better preacher, a bigger miracle, a more profound sign, even a dead person come back to life, then she couldn’t help but follow after Jesus.

The Jewish leaders demanded just “one more sign” from Jesus and then they’d believe His claims. His reply was a strong slap in the face to everyone who thinks that God hasn’t already done enough to bring sinful men and women to Himself:

An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth (Matthew 12:39-40).

In Romans 1:6, Paul wrote that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.This “sign of the prophet Jonah” – Christ’s resurrection – is the greatest and most powerful definitive sign given from Heaven to prove the claims and identity of Jesus. If after 2,000 years of telling it, the Easter story isn’t big enough to bring someone to faith, nothing else will.